Land of the Setting Sun
by Tracy Jane
Summary: In a disturbing alternate universe, the Axis won world war two. Having taken on Goa'uld across the galaxy, HD1 decide to tackle a few problems closer to home. Warning: Violence and Torture


This past few weeks, there has been the Sam Carter Ficathon over at livejournal (username samcarterfic) and the following is one of two fics I wrote for that.

Land of the Setting Sun was written for Strix Varia based on the requests below and was kindly beta'd by MandySG1 at the last minute. Big thank yous to for all those that left me feedback for Shattered, giving me the confidence to write this, to Strix for an amazing request and to all the boys and girls and Sam Carter Ficathon for the amazing event!

WANTS: 1. An AU in which Nazi Germany and Japan won WWII 2. Kinsey as the main Nazi villain 3. Janet treats a whumped Sam

DOESN'T WANT: 1. Major character death (unless it's non-permanent) 2. A tragic ending 3. Evil Sam 

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She stood smartly, the Type 96 LMG strapped to her chest as her short, blonde hair was whipped up by the coastal winds. The archaic firearm was one that signified tradition and horror for Sam Carter, an icon of her duties and of the American State of Dai Nippon Teikoku.

A rush of guilt flooded her body as her eyes fell upon the officers lining up in front of her. They were colleagues, friends, traitors to the Japanese Empire. At least, that's what she forced her mind to repeat, no matter how she doubted their policies.

Normally 'specialists' eliminated these anti-Japanese elements, but as a deterrent to other potential defectors in such a highly classified establishment, co-workers were brought in to carry out the cleansing.

Siler, Harriman, Hailey, a young Sho-i she had once worked with, one or two scientists and other enlisted personnel… Faces she knew but names she did not.

She heard the myriad of voices reciting the key mantras of Yamato Damashi: "Never give up. Never break down. Never surrender." _ Never break down. _ The three words echoed in Sam's head as she steeled herself against her emotions. It was her job; blood had been shed before.

Slowly and purposefully, Samantha Carter Shosa lifted the weapon over her head and stood it on the sandbags in front of her. She stepped to one side and watched, steely faced, as the renegades bowed to her. Then she stepped back behind the gun and swore an oath of allegiance to the Great Emperor.

Blue eyes looked out at the grey skies and its darker, watery counterpart lapping at the feet of the corpses. She had to think of them as corpses; if she considered them already dead, then shooting them wouldn't matter.

Lowering herself to the ground and using her elbows on the heavy brown sacks as support, the blonde shosa focused on her targets and started to ease pressure on the trigger.

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Sam woke up in a cold sweat. She climbed out of her bunk and made her way to the basin to wash her face and neck, running wet fingers through her short, blonde hair. Hurriedly, she donned her mustard woollen uniform with its typically Japanese high, rounded collar and laced up her boots.

"Sam?"

Carter kept her eyes focused ahead as she murmured in response. "Fraiser Isha would be well advised to hold her tongue," she replied softly. Eyes and ears were everywhere and the screenings becoming increasingly tougher. She couldn't risk the medic's life.

735 metres per second. The bullets had ripped through their flesh at a velocity that forced them to stagger a few final steps backwards into the incoming tide. Carter Shosa closed her eyes. She wouldn't let that happen to Janet.

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"O'Neill Taisa," she greeted, giving her superior a small bow from the waist, her hands clasped on her thighs, as was customary for women. She straightened up, expecting the usual nod of acknowledgement, but got none.

"Come on, Carter," he groaned good naturedly as he slapped her on the back. "You don't have to bow every time you see me. It's not like there's a law – well, yes there is, but…"

The two officers shared a knowing look as they walked through the woodland on top of the mountain, a light drizzle dampening their jackets as they went. He sat down and indicated for her to do the same.

"O'Neill-sama…" she protested gently before joining him. "What is this about?"

He watched his shosa appraisingly, looking for signs of anxiety, signs that she might turn him in. But he should have known better; Carter Shosa was loyal and self-assured, and after five years on the same team, it took little more than a glance to ascertain that she had the same doubts as he.

"I was approached," he told her, tossing small stones into the woods. "Maybourne-san."

She laughed derisively in response and got back to her feet. She bowed a deep forty-five degree bow in apology. "With all due respect, Maybourne is a known defector. He cannot be deemed trustworthy." Her controlled words were a far cry from the prickly rage she felt within. She silently cursed the culture of submissiveness that she had been born into.

At school, Sam had often wondered about the time before the Japanese 'rescued' the American nation from their corrupt and immoral ways. Sure, the depression hadn't looked that great, but the twenties… well, she had thought that it looked like fun. Even now, Sam remembered the looks of horror and disbelief from her classmates and teacher.

_ 'Samantha-chan, such ideas must not be spoken in public. They are the words of defectors and enemies of the Empire,' _ she had been told. Was it really that wrong to dream of a world where she could speak her mind without being slapped for insubordination, or where those who disobeyed were jailed rather than shot? She still couldn't understand how the Empire had been the American State's salvation, but she had learned that keeping her tongue in check was the only way to survive. And she had the marks to prove it.

"Carter, I don't trust Harry any more than you do but, hell, we've gotta do something," O'Neill sighed. "We can save entire planets from slavery and oppression, but we can't even save our own damn country."

She bowed deeply once more. "Who says our country needs saving?"

"Dammit, Carter, cut that out!" the taisa shouted, getting to his feet. "This country? It makes the Goa'uld system look like a holiday camp."

"Keep your voice down," Sam hissed, grabbing at O'Neill's sleeve, in spite of its inappropriateness. The two officers stared at each other for a moment, eyes blazing. "There's nothing we can do, even if we wanted to."

"Amerika."

Sam looked at him incredulously. "Amerika? We would never get across the border, even if we wanted to."

"HD1 has been asked to brief Reichsleiter Kinsey on the Hoshidoa Program," he explained. "We've been granted clearance to enter the Deutsche Reich to conduct the briefing in the interest of German-Japanese relations."

The shosa was confused. "How does that help? We can't defect, if that's what you mean; we'd be wanted by both governments."

"Maybourne-san spoke of a mutually beneficial agreement, one that the Reichsleiter is in a position to make," Jack continued, his exasperation evident. "We've got to do this, Carter, it's our only hope."

Sam shook her head. "How can anything the Reich has to offer be beneficial to us? You've seen the reports and read the books. The Empire maybe shoot defectors or throw them overboard, but what about the Canadian death camps? Hundreds and thousands of 'unmentionables' thrown in and gassed every day. How's that any better?"

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Tugging the collar of her long mustard oobaa, Sam climbed into the back of the large VW limousine after Jack. She made a seated bow to Gauleiter Simmons, their escort, and was surprised when he extended a hand to her.

"You're supposed to take it," he commented sarcastically in slightly accented English.

Carter Shosa tentatively took the hand, unused to the physical contact employed by the man. She waited until he released it and listened to his talk, fascinated by the accent. Schools in the Empire tended to be bilingual, both Japanese and English being acceptable, though Japanese being preferred in more formal situations. In the Reich, however, it seemed that German had been employed as the predominant language and, looking out the window, Sam saw that signs and posters were also written in German, one of which caught her eye.

"Feiertag? Dr Daniel Jackson?" she asked, trying to understand the foreign script.

The Gauleiter's attention was diverted from his conversation with O'Neill Taisa. "Major Carter – forgive me for using English titles, I am not familiar with the Empire's ranking – What are you looking at?" He dipped his head to look out of the window and look at the numerous billboards. "Daniel Jackson. He was a dangerous defector, spouting all sorts of historical theories that were not approved by the Reich."

"Not approved by the Reich?" Sam enquired. "What was he saying?"

"That life began elsewhere, that the Egyptian pyramids in Giza are older than claimed to be, that they were landing platforms for alien spaceships." Simmons flashed a grin. "Nothing that isn't true."

O'Neill glanced up. "Then what's the problem?"

"The problem is that it hasn't been approved by the Reich," the Gauleiter replied simply. "His theories were gaining in popularity, people were defecting, we had to do something. So we exposed him as a dangerous renegade and sent him to Manhattan."

Sam swallowed back the bile she felt rising in the back of her throat. Manhattan was one of the only death camps in Amerika, and it was one of the most ghastly in the Reich. The island, with its dense population of high rise buildings, was perfect for containing millions of defectors, particularly those of high standing in the community. Celebrities who were found to be sexual deviants, politicians who had inappropriate interests, astrologers and the rich who were deemed to have dangerously liberal views.

"He will be purged at the end of next week, and, for that reason, the Reichsleiter has declared a national holiday," Simmons continued.

Sam watched the numerous billboards as they whizzed through the streets. There was something familiar about the blue eyes that stared down from behind the glasses. Like a friend, a long lost brother. He didn't look like a threat or a dangerous renegade, he looked… normal. Compassionate, even. A pang of guilt hit her in the gut, a pang that she knew she shouldn't have. It wasn't her fault he was there, that he refused to conform, refused to stay out and not meddle with the order of things.

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"Ohayou-gozaimasu O'Neill Taisa ya Carter Shosa," he greeted with a bow. "Oai-deki-te ureshii-desu."

The officers bowed in return before Sam gave a greeting in the official language of Kinsey's eastern Amerika. "Vielen dank, Reichsleiter. Ihre Einladung hat uns viel gefreut und wir hoffen, dass wir einander und unsere Nationen helfen und erweitern können."

"Very well learned, Carter Shosa," Kinsey remarked scathingly.

O'Neill cocked his head. "Back atcha."

"If Herr Kinsey would be so kind as to show me to the briefing room," Sam started, her eyes to the floor as was required of her according to Japanese custom, cheeks still tinged red from Kinsey's slight.

The Reichsleiter waved his hand dismissively and sat back in a large, comfortable armchair, indicating for O'Neill and Carter to do the same. "Please, give me some credit. There is no briefing, never was. It was just a way to get you here without arousing suspicion. I have enough spies to fill me in on the Stargate… what do you call it? Hoshidoa Program."

"Then why?" the shosa asked, taking a seat and looking around them.

They were in the Amerikaschloss, a huge, white domed mansion on Führerstraße. Sam knew that historically this was the presidential mansion, the White House. She had never imagined for a moment that she would one day be inside this famed seat of power, one time home to the most powerful men on the planet. Now, however, it was just one of many seats for one of the world's two Superpowers.

Her history books had depicted the diplomatic room as being blue with murals on the walls and gold coloured furniture. The latter had not changed, the two larger armchairs and two hard-backed chairs grouped around the fireplace, the window-seats and the sofa. But now the walls were red, the carpet was red, and, instead of murals, it was portraits of Hitler and the line of Führers that adorned the walls.

"My agents have told me of your disillusionment," he drawled lazily, beckoning a servant with a flick of his wrist. "Drinks." He turned his attention back to his guests. "We have the same aims, the same goals. Despite our reputation, we realise that a little co-operation will get us a long way."

O'Neill barked out a sarcastic laugh. "So, what? We help you overthrow the Japanese and then what? We get thrown in concentration camps whilst you fight a bloody war with troops from the rest of the Empire?"

Carter looked up from the floor, her wide blue eyes watching the smile that played on Kinsey's face as he took a sip of his brandy. She quickly diverted her gaze as he looked in her direction.

"Miss Carter-"

"That's Carter Shosa," corrected O'Neill with a scowl.

"Carter Shosa," continued Kinsey, with a nod towards O'Neill. "You must be sympathetic to our cause, a lovely young lady like yourself." He paused to take another sip of brandy, keeping his gaze steady over the top of his glass. "Blonde hair, blue eyes, a true Aryan beauty with physical and military prowess to boot."

Sam felt her cheeks burning as she looked at the intricate details on the fireplace. "I am very flattered, Kinsey-sama, but it is really quite unnecessary."

"No, Major Carter, it is not," he replied, leaning forward as he eyed her with his piercing gaze. "No doubt the Hoshidoa project is worthy of your attentions, Major. But think of how much more you could achieve with my help. You are a poster child for our nation, the archetypal Aryan with immeasurable scientific knowledge. If we could just deal with that little Catholic problem of yours, there would be no limit to your aspirations."

"She's not interested," O'Neill yelled, jumping out of his chair in anger. "C'mon Carter, we've heard enough."

The Reichsleiter continued to smile lazily. "Let the lady speak for herself, Colonel."

"I'm not interested," she mumbled, flushing deeply as she got to her feet.

"Well," shrugged Kinsey as he joined them by the door. "It is your choice, of course. But I couldn't be held responsible if one of my agents happened to let it slip that you consider the Goa'uld system to be… ah… how did you put it? That's right. A holiday camp... in comparison to the current regime." He raised his eyebrows. "I suppose that if you were lucky, they may allow you to live out your days in Camp Apophis. However, I sincerely doubt that."

The officers stopped in their tracks and exchanged a worried look. A moment of panic, then Jack spoke. "What is it you need us to do?"

Sam closed her eyes to the gleeful grin that emanated from Kinsey's face. She followed the men back to their seats and sat rigidly on the edge of one of the hard-backed, gold chairs.

"I'm not asking much, Jack," he told the disgusted and wary taisa. "I just need you and your team to throw the American State into chaos. We can do the rest."

"Only?" laughed Jack derisively, choking on his beer. "Not much at all!"

Sam looked at him with an eerie expression playing on her pale face. "How?"

"You have contacts. There are a lot of worlds that have been pissed off by your government," the Reichsleiter told her, his eyes sparkling with delight. "You just get them to attack the State, and then we move in."

"Ok. We'll do it."

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"Ok, we'll do it!" Jack asked incredulously as they were transported back to the border controls. "Carter! You can't just agree to do something like that! Do you think for a second that he's not going to double cross us the minute he gets control? Do you think he's really going to let us walk free when he knows we can't be trusted?"

Sam shifted slightly. She had been sat silently in the back of the dank, dark truck for hours. Her knees were held up to her chest by long slender arms, arms that had been marked and scarred. The grey woollen blanket that had been draped over her shoulders slid to the damp floor as she moved.

"Of course he's going to double cross us," she told him quietly. "That's why we're going to double cross him."

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HD1 stood at the base of the ramp, staring up into the blue, watery expanse of the event horizon. Carter Shosa's stomach was doing somersaults as she gripped the nylon straps of her backpack and started to walk up the ramp behind O'Neill Taisa.

She knew that Fraiser Isha was behind her, red hair piled beneath her helmet, and the fourth member of HD1, a young Tai-I named Mitchell. Carter instinctively closed her eyes as she walked through the Hoshidoa.

Once on the other side, Sam watched Mitchell run to the DHD. "Mitchell-kohai, wait!" She knew they had to wait until the sabotaged MALP died on them or they faced being discovered. She surreptitiously checked her wristwatch and counted down the seconds.

"Tai-I, dial out, NOW!" barked O'Neill. "I said NOW! We have exactly one minute and 48 seconds until the HD centre discovers there's a problem. I want to be gone about 48 seconds BEFORE that point."

Fraiser joined her team mate at the DHD and shook her head gently. "No. It will look far better if we are here to report the problem. Say that we are here, there are no hostiles and we shall report back in 24 hours."

"Agreed," Carter nodded, shooting a look at the Tai-I which made him stop in his tracks.

Jack shrugged off his backpack and dropped to the grass. "Ok, folks. Looks like we'll be camping out for a few. Anyone got any stories?"

"O'Neill-sama," came Sam's worried voice as she joined him on her knees. "Are you sure we're doing the right thing? I mean, we're military, we swore an oath to the Empire. Surely this is…"

"We were CONSCRIPTED, Carter. Those oaths mean nothing." He looked up as the gate whooshed into action once more, then clicked on his radio, speaking to the technician in rapid Japanese. "HDC, this is HD1. We're fine, no hostiles in sight. We'll radio in every 24 hours. O'Neill out."

Questions flew back and forth, it seemed that Jack's explanation wasn't satisfactory, but eventually, the wormhole closed and they were left alone on the grass, eyeing each other apprehensively.

"Fraiser, Mitchell, I'm not gonna ask you two to do this. You're risking both your careers and your lives," Jack sighed from where he sat.

Janet smiled. "No way am I letting you two out of my sight. Who knows what you'd get up to. Right, Cam?"

"Sure, whatever. Sounds like fun," shrugged the young officer nonchalantly whilst chewing his gum. On the order, he began to dial out once more to what their Intel called the home of the Jaffa resistance.

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"Look, it's okay, we like the Empire about as much as you, that's why we're here," protested Jack from behind the bars of his cell. He thumped the wall as the Jaffa guard left without a word.

"That went well," Mitchell told him sarcastically.

Jack shot him a warning look. "Will you shut up for just one minute! All I ever hear is what your Grandma says and how it sounds like fun. I hear sarcastic little comments about my plans going wrong. Well, here's an idea, bucko. Try coming up with your own plan for once."

"Where are the girls?" the Tai-I asked in his southern drawl.

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Sam tried to swat Janet away from her as she shuffled across the straw covered floor.

"Get off me, it's fine," she protested, hiding her hand from her friend's view. "Janet," she continued to whine as the medic pried her hand away.

Janet looked at her sternly as she dabbed at the injured hand with a sterile wipe. "Don't tell me it's fine, Sam. I'm the Isha here, not you. That cut's deep and if you're not careful, it will get infected."

The shosa glowered at her friend before turning her head away to wince slightly at the pain. "Just leave it, Janet, please."

"What the hell possessed you to take on three fully grown Jaffa like that anyway?" the doctor scolded. "We were supposed to be coming on a peaceful mission to try and encourage the rebels to join our side, not to try and kill them off."

Sam sighed and let her friend take her hand. It was easier than fighting her. "I didn't 'take them on'. They were about to fire staff blasts at O'Neill-sama and Mitchell. What else was I supposed to do?"

"Nothing," came a deep voice from the doorway.

Janet and Sam turned to see an imposing Jaffa stood in front of the bars, the gold marking of a First Prime on his forehead and a staff weapon in his hand. The two women shuffled back into the corner, huddling together for protection.

"You behaved most honourably," continued the warrior, "and for that you have gained a measure of respect." He bowed his head, eyes closed, a gesture that gave Sam a feeling of familiarity. "I am Teal'c, former First Prime of Apophis. Though I am grateful for your aid in the downfall of our false god, the regime your Empire enforced following your departure is regrettable."

Carter Shosa untangled herself from the medic and crawled forward, trying not to put pressure on her injured hand. "I am Carter Shosa of the Imperial Air Service. We want the same thing you do, the freedom of all peoples from those who would enslave them, be they Jaffa or Japanese." Her shaky voice became more confident as she progressed and she got to her feet, holding the bars and slotting her face between them to talk to the enormous man before her. "We've betrayed our country and risked our lives coming here, Teal'c. You have everything we need. Ships, warriors, weapons. Together we could free the Tau'ri within days."

He gazed at her in silence. "Indeed. But the decision in not one to be made in haste."

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"I ask you again, Carter Shosa, why were you not within radio range?"

The tug on her blonde hair sent a shot of pain through her as her head was wrenched backwards. The plan, it seemed, had failed.

Sam and Janet had come back as normal through the Stargate, claiming that Jack and Cam had been abducted by Jaffa when, in fact, they were travelling towards Earth in Goa'uld vessels which would be poised ready to strike in a simultaneous attack on the major seats of power within the day.

Upon their return, however, Fraiser and Carter had been escorted to an Imperial Screening Centre for questioning. The Isha's questioning had been brief and a small black square with the date had been tattooed on the underside of her left arm. Sam, on the other hand, hadn't been so lucky.

"I ASKED YOU WHY YOU WERE OUT OF RADIO RANGE!" The man yelled, shoving Sam forward onto her knees and lashing a fine leather whip against her bare back, cutting the pale skin it came into contact with.

Sam inhaled sharply at the pain. "I told you before," she spat at him. "We were under attack from Jaffa troops, the ones that abducted O'Neill Taisa and Mitchell Tai-I."

Another flick of the whip, another wound intersecting the previous. "You lie. There were no hostiles."

"Come on! The MALP was faulty! You can't trust any telemetry you re…"

The interrogator knelt beside her and gripped her hair again, pulling her head towards his mouth so that he could hiss in her ear, his breath putrid and body covered in sweat.

"You have gotten away with this much, Shosa, but no more," he hissed as she felt a searing heat run through her left arm.

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She stood smartly, the heavy metal chains strapped round her chest as her short, blonde hair was whipped up by the coastal winds. Determined to go out with dignity, she battled the pain from the lacerations on her back, fresh wounds that had just been inflicted, and faced her aggressor defiantly.

Positioned precariously on the edge of the boat, Sam felt the gentle rocking as it bobbed over the waves. Her eyes scanned the horizon, desperate for some sign of hope, a vessel on the horizon that could save her, be it in the sea or in the skies above.

The lightening quick flash of leather and Sam instinctively jumped back to avoid the whip, sending herself plunging down to the waves below. Searing pain from salt on open wounds, the panic as the sea closed around her, chains dragging her down to her watery grave.

Blues and greys, the white bubbles from her own movement misting the view, a rush of black in front of her eyes. A shark? Another prisoner? She didn't know, her brain didn't have time to process it before it forced her to take a breath, drawing liquid inside her as she slipped out of consciousness.

A cough. A gravely, hoarse breath; desperate and deep. Water. She felt water. Sam panted as she opened her eyes to seemingly blinding light, so different to the darkness she had last remembered surrounding her.

This wasn't possible, it couldn't be happening. She had been whipped, she could feel the lacerations as if they were new, salt water searing into the fresh wounds. She had fallen overboard, off the harbour of Long Beach, the state's most prolific Sook Ching centre.

She barely remembered the journey from California, drifting in and out of consciousness, suffering the after effects of the interrogation and accompanying torture. She remembered wishing they'd just kill her. Why the delay? Why the transport?

_ Dai Nippon Teikoku respects its traditions. The Empire respects its heritage and the part it has played in bringing Japan to its current global importance. That is why. _

"Sam?" came a familiar voice. "Sam, don't move. You're going to be fine, I promise."

And blackness. Again.

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"Janet?" she whispered quietly, blearily opening her eyes.

She looked around, unable to see much. The floor felt hard underneath the rough military blanket and the air was musty. She tried to raise herself to a sitting position but winced as her injured hand touched the floor.

"Sam," the relieved voice sounded close and the shosa felt a hand on her shoulder. "Oh, God, Sam, I wish I could… your back… your arm."

Sam closed her eyes. "They didn't believe me."

"I saw," came the dismayed reply. She had seen the small triangle that had been branded into the skin of Carter's left forearm. A black tattooed square when you passed, a triangular brand if you failed. Fire and water.

Slowly, she continued to struggle into a sitting position, helped by the Isha's gentle hands. "How… I thought I was… I thought that…"

"You nearly were."

As her eyes adjusted to the dim light of the space, Sam realised they were in the back of a van, probably hidden outside of a town somewhere. Flashes of light from outside told her that the attack was probably underway, but she heard no screams.

"They said you had been taken to Long Beach," the Isha explained quietly. "I wanted to come out and get you, but I couldn't. The harbour is a military centre; there's no way I could get authorisation to either visit or to sail. The only way to do it was to rescue you once you were under, and God knows that's a risky business."

Sam opened her eyes wide in realisation. "The black blur."

"I thought I'd lost you, Sam. You weren't breathing, you were bleeding all over and you weren't breathing," Janet continued, her voice becoming terse and worried. "I've lost patients, lots of patients, but not friends."

"You didn't lose me, you big sap," Sam joked affectionately, putting a hand on the woman's shoulder. "Now, where are we? I've lost track of time, I need to know what's happening, where we are."

The isha relaxed against the wall of the van. "We're in the New York area. You've been in and out for the past three days. I wish we could have got here quicker, but you're a criminal, you're branded. Trying to smuggle you out of a military police state… I couldn't do it again."

"Hopefully you won't have to," Sam replied solemnly. "Three days?" she questioned, her mind racing to fit the pieces together. The duration of the investigation, the transportation from Colorado to Long Beach, the time it took to get across the boarder to this point. "Tuesday," she murmured. "It's Tuesday."

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A grey and drizzly dawn was breaking over New York as the two Imperial officers slid off the back of the truck wearing grey woollen skirts and overcoats with light blouses underneath; civilian supplies Janet had managed to acquire. Sam tried not to limp, but the awkward movements inflicted by injured back, chest and arms were inevitable.

The shosa and isha took in the scene around them as they walked through the streets. The damp was finally putting out long raging fires, turning the orange haze to grey. Rubble and dust littered the pathways in place of the usual dog dirt and papers, a token of remembrance from the vessels that had devastated the area in the past days. Kinsey may have only wanted the opposition wiping out, but the Jaffa weren't ones for leaving loose ends. Officers in various uniforms patrolled the streets, weapons in hand, trying to cling onto one last shred of control in the devastated region.

Sam looked around, desperately trying to find some indication of Manhattan's location, to no avail. A glance upwards into Janet's brown eyes, a shrewd narrowing of her own as a plan formed in the mind behind and then she limped over to her friend.

"Kiss me," she told the isha with unnerving directness.

A shocked redhead stared back, her eyes flitted between Sam's and the officers surrounding them. "No! Sam, are you nuts?"

"Shut up, just do it," Sam insisted quietly.

Janet took a step backwards into her own personal space, rubbing one hand over her arm nervously, barricading herself from the shosa. "Sam, I… we're just friends, I never… besides, we're in Nazi Amerika. Do something like that and we'll get thrown in…"

"That's the idea," hissed Sam, taking a step closer once more to bridge the gap.

"Kann ich Ihnen helfen, Fräulein?" came an inquiring voice.

Sam and Janet jumped and turned round, stumped by the offer of help from the officer. German wasn't, and had never been, taught in their schools. Speaking the language was considered a sign of treachery, and the two women stood there, helpless.

"Errr…. Ja? Danke."

Sam prayed that her confused reply coupled with a dazzling smile would be enough to throw the brown uniformed man off their trail. They had come too far to be dumped in a small prison, their target was so much bigger. She shouldn't have worried.

"You are under arrest for high treason," the officer announced as two more arrested them, surprised at the women's lack of struggle.

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Sam closed her eyes as the doctor circled her and Janet, obviously inspecting them for any deformities. She felt herself shoved to the right, so opened her eyes to join the queue. Wrinkling her nose at the faint smell of rotting flesh, she looked around her to find Janet, but the short redhead had disappeared.

Pushing her way through the crowds of people queueing on the bridge, the aptly named "Gateway to Hell", Sam tried to ask people if they had seen the isha but to no avail. English wasn't spoken here, or the inhabitants didn't dare speak it.

A sharp blow to the back of her legs made Carter Shosa's knees buckle and she fell on her still injured, and now infected, hand. She scurried back into the line of misfits, still on alert for her friend.

The line began to move and Sam was unnerved, Janet still out of her sight. She was packed into the back of a military transport vehicle with at least fifty others; no room to move, barely to breathe. Some of the people hadn't washed in days or weeks, had probably been forced here in wagons without bathroom facilities.

As the engine started, Sam peered through a canvas eyehole on the side of the van, looking out for any sign of her friend as they passed through the streets of 1920s skyscrapers, a one-time symbol of glory, now just known as a symbol of death and of terror.

The drive was excruciatingly slow and Sam's calls for the isha were greeted with panicked screaming from others who didn't understand. The shosa began to realise how futile her attempts were as the sheer scale of this camp dawned on her.

As the truck ground to a halt, the uniformed drivers herded the inmates off like cattle. A label was stuck on her chest as she was shoved into a nearby building, forced down into a chair just inside the entrance as an identification number was tattooed into her skin.

Sent into a second building, Sam was stripped of her clothes. She bit her lip, terrified of what came next. _ One line for life, one line for death. _ She followed fellow prisoners into an adjacent building, naked, bruised, cut and torn, feeling certain of her impending death.

A man looked her over, noted the scars and wounds, then handed Carter a uniform. Despite the anger at being viewed as a piece of meat, being looked at naked by a man, she couldn't help but question what was happening. No, it couldn't be right, he was supposed to send her to the 'shower room'. But he hadn't, he had given her a uniform.

She quickly stitched her number onto the uniform, not wanting to tempt fate, gladly accepting the red inverted triangle that was given to her and adding that, then dressing and leaving the building along with hundreds of other men and women.

She was escorted into another skyscraper and forced to limp up twenty three flights of stairs, falling and scraping her hand several times, being trampled on by those behind. Eventually, she reached her cell, what had obviously once been an office, with it's huge glass windows and empty space shared between fourteen.

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_ 'Thursday. It's Thursday,' _ Sam thought groggily as she was dragged to her feet by two guards and pulled unceremoniously down the stairs, her legs clattering limply. No food, little water. A corner of the room was used as a toilet, the weakest person having to sleep in that corner too. The constant shrieking and screaming of her cellmates resulted in little sleep and distant screams of mothers separated from children in the streets below haunted that which she did get.

She put her hand to her head to run it through her thick, short blonde hair, but it was gone. Sheared off. She had forgotten that. Yet another attempt to steal the identity of all those who were in the camp. The hair was no longer needed for clothing, not like it had been back during the war, not now that they had access to all the cotton growers and clothes manufacturers, dominating the world market. It was just greed, a way of enforcing their power.

Sam felt herself thrown onto a cold metal surface and looked round her as doctors surrounded and stripped her. Her eye sockets ached, both from the lack of sleep and the lack of nutrition. She was wary of the metal objects in this room that seemed strangely like a surgery.

A small, bald woman fumbled and strapped her to the metal bed. There was something familiar about her, despite her swollen, artificial-looking blue left eye. The figure closed her good eye and looked away, Sam's restraints meaning that she couldn't follow her with her own line of vision.

There was something in the atmosphere in the room, something unnerving. Sam tried to see, but leather straps round her forehead and chin prevented it. She saw blurs, occasional movements out of the corner of her eyes. And she heard shaky breathing. Familiar breathing.

Pain shot through her body, it took a minute for her brain to process its origin. Somewhere in her midriff, she ascertained. A knife cut? No, that couldn't be – SHIT. Deeper this time, Sam bit her lip, trying to stay calm, stay strong, remember her military training. A third sharp pain and she screamed with all her might, feeling something squirming inside of her. What were they doing, why were they doing it?

"Rühe! Oder wir Ihre Zunge rausschneiden werden."

Sam's eyes were squeezed tight. Was that an instruction or an explanation? She didn't know, she didn't care. She just wanted it to

STOP!

It hurt like hell, searing pain as people fumbled and cut, she could feel them inside her, open surgery with no anaesthetic and little regard for sterile procedures. She didn't know

How

MUCH

She could

ENDURE!

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Back in her cell and forced to sleep in the reeking bathroom corner, Sam was crippled with pain. She had no idea whether it was still Thursday, whether it was Friday or perhaps even later. All those noble ideas of rescue, saving that familiar face, the one that campaigned of truth… she didn't care anymore. She had been crudely stitched up, no pain meds given, no food, not that she thought she could stomach any anyway.

Footsteps. Creaking of an open door.

_Oh God, no. Not me, not again. _

Yet she had volunteered for this, there was a higher purpose to her arrest. She hadn't gone through all of this to give up now. And if Janet had been lost, she prayed that she hadn't, then there had to be something to-

A kick in the wound ruptured her thoughts as much as her stitches. Sam was once more dragged downstairs, but this time the others were ushered down with her. She forced herself to concentrate, to listen to what was happening, but to no avail. She had no feel for German, had no idea what they were saying, what was happening. She was blind to what was happening.

Led outside, she let herself be thrown unceremoniously onto a truck, let herself be carried off once more, certain again that this would be her last. Blood seeped through her clothing, freed from her body by the rough handling of the guards, but Sam wouldn't cry. She still had to do this.

The determined shosa tried to push through the throng of victims so that she could get off the truck. She needed to get off the truck. But she was too weak. Devoid of energy once at the destination, she slumped again as the officers dragged her off the vehicle and stripped her naked.

Unlike the first time, Sam felt no shame. Shame required energy, something she had little of at the present moment. She felt herself ushered towards a building, passing hundreds of bald men and women, only one in a doctor's coat, one with a puffy blue eye, that she recognised.

The blue eyed woman looked at Sam and crossed something off on her clipboard as the shosa was ushered into the hall. Was that a look of sympathy that crossed her face? She couldn't tell from one eye.

Carter Shosa was one of the last people in and she leaned against the door as it swung shut behind her. Motivational signs affixed to pillars that supported the low ceiling of the room taught the importance of cleanliness. Suddenly fear kicked in as Sam realised where she was.

She thumped against the door, trying to yell to get out, creating panic in the chamber. Children were trampled as people rushed towards the door, a strong man pushing beside Sam, a man she recognised.

"Daniel."

The man turned and looked at her, his face calm, despite the chaotic panic in the building. "Do I know you?"

"No," Sam whispered, energy ebbing away by the second. "But you were…"

"Supposed to be publicly executed," he concluded. "I know, but there was the attack. The whole of Amerika, America, whatever, it was attacked by ships, huge pyramid shaped spaceships and the Nazis are fleeing whilst they still can."

Sam watched him in confusion, trying to get her brain to compute what she was hearing. "I… but if they are fleeing, then…"

"They're trying to get rid of us all, or as many as possible. You're too weak to walk, they can't march you away, so they are killing you, no you don't," he said, pulling her back to her feet as she started to slip to the ground. "We're getting out of here, then you're gonna tell me your name."

Daniel started to cough and the coughing began to spread. Sam hammered on the door, but knew in her heart of hearts that the time had come.

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Screeching. The screeching of a heavy door being pulled open, that's what Sam heard as she fell forward. She looked up into the face of the puffy eyed doctor. The woman dragged her away and Sam was relieved to see that Daniel was following.

"I… I can't. It hurts," Sam muttered, her feet dragging.

The doctor nodded to Daniel and he picked the shosa up, following the smaller woman through back-streets and ducking behind a building to find a staircase. Hurriedly running down after the mysterious woman, Daniel got to the bottom and gasped.

"The New York subway," she said proudly.

Sam stirred as the man set her on a row of chairs. "Janet?" she asked quietly, presuming herself to be delusional, hallucinating the woman who dressed her in a tunic as Daniel sorted his.

Her mind wandered briefly as she contemplated the fate of the tunic's former owner. Where had Janet got the clothing? Outside one of the gas chambers? Or was the owner's fate worse? Altitude experiments, freezing and unfreezing, was it a twin who had been experimented on or sewn to their identical partner? The range of Nazi horrors was so extensive, so gruesome that Sam shuddered involuntary and the prospects.

"It's me, I'm here," the woman said, smiling sadly at her friend. She knelt beside her, obviously injured herself. " I've got a couple of bits in this bag, so I'm gonna patch you up as best I can, right? But we've got to get you out of here, alright?"

Carter bit her lip and nodded, looking up into Janet's damaged eyes. "What happened?"

She received no response from her formerly redheaded friend. The horrors she had been through were not ones she wanted to share, at least not at the moment. She had been recognised as a doctor and assigned to work alongside Nazi geneticists in their experiments. The partial removal of Sam's liver without anaesthetic was just one of many operations she had had to endure in the two days she had been assigned.

Janet herself had been a test subject, her left eye injected with chemicals to turn it blue, a more preferable colour according to the Nazis. As an assistant to the "doctors", her eyesight had been too valuable to damage completely. The plan was to change one eye at a time, and currently, Janet's vision in her left eye was greatly impaired.

Damage to her eyesight, however, was not the worst of her injuries. Her limp had been caused by other experimentation. Her womb had been injected with a cocktail of drugs, causing her stomach to swell and burning spasms of pain in it. She knew that her ovaries were beyond repair, poisoned, swollen. They needed removing, urgently and it was causing her pain. But first they had to get out and get to safety.

"You're bandaged up and good to go," Janet told her friend softly. "I want you to try and eat a little of this. Not too much, now, you haven't eaten in a couple of days."

Sam watched her screw the lid on the small bottle of alcohol used to clean her wounds. "Give me a swig," she joked without much humour in her voice.

"Not with half a liver, I won't," Janet replied wryly, continuing to pack things away as her friend ate. "Sorry it's nothing tastier, but I can't give you salt, fat or glucose."

Carter Shosa nodded quietly as she chewed.

"I need you to walk for me, Sam," Fraiser sighed. She held a small tablet in her outstretched hand. "It's for the pain. It won't kill it completely, but it should help. We need them to last, I don't know how long it will be until I can get you to a hospital."

Watching her friend wince in pain, Sam outstretched her own hand and pushed the tablet back to Janet. "You take it. Half, take half at least."

"I've. Already. Had. Mine," the doctor forced out from between gritted teeth.

Her protests rejected, Sam took the pill and got to her feet, following Janet and Daniel to the edge of the platform. She watched as her companions slid down onto the long abandoned tracks of the subway and gingerly joined them. Supporting herself against the walls, she started to edge down the platform towards the deep pitch of the tunnel.

Pain flooded Sam's body with each step, but she knew the urgency of the situation, the potential danger behind them if they lingered. But just a few metres into the tunnel, Sam fell to her knees, hands on the ground, supporting her upper body weight.

"Sam?" A worried voice echoed through the subway system. "Sam, honey, it's not far. I promise you, a few more steps and then the only muscle you have to exercise is your brain. We'll do the rest."

Gently, Janet and Daniel helped her up and walked her another few feet. Sam felt herself scooped up by the strong… historian? She was lifted onto a small train car and set down. It flickered into a dim light as Daniel struck a match and lit the lamp.

"Battery car," Sam murmured, looking around her.

The doctor looked hopeful as she ran a hand comfortingly over Sam's shoulder. "Can you get it to work? Does it need power? It would get us out here a hell of a lot quicker."

"Theoretically, it should be ready charged," Carter mused, looking around. "Battery cars charge themselves from the traction during the day so that at night it can run whilst the traction is switched off. Chances are, it hasn't been used since the system was closed, but we don't know," she explained. She continued to gaze around her at the various bits and pieces.

Daniel folded his arms and then unfolded them again. He tutted and sighed before folding them once more. "Well, we can't afford to take a chance." He received a stern glare from Fraiser as Sam shifted to look round.

"I think we can do it," she told them through gritted teeth. "We need to reroute the power from the station's main supply through to the traction. Normally the traction would be powered by its own power supply, but there's no way of telling where that is located. What we need to do is turn on the main power for this particular section and hook it up to the cable, something like jump starting a car. Once that's sorted, it doesn't matter how much charge our engine has."

Her companions nodded, but Daniel looked unsure. "How do we physically hook up without electrocuting ourselves?"

"Overhead traction," she murmured in response, feeling a wave of dizziness. "Walking on the tracks won't hurt you. You need to connect the main system wires to the emergency circuitry box and the end of the platform," Sam continued quietly, explaining the idea in detail, knowing that Daniel would have to be the one to execute it.

"I don't know where the main system circuits are." Sam could have sworn Daniel was trying to get out of it, but Janet came to the rescue with the location. The woman had done her research well.

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It frustrated Sam that she hadn't been able to go and hook up the power generators herself, but it seemed that their new team-mate had done an excellent job, and they quickly covered the eight and a half miles off the island and to safety.

Off the car and in the station itself, Janet allowed them to sleep for a few hours, restoring a little strength that was much needed. When they awoke, she redressed their wounds, and dished out a combination of meds and food before they cautiously made their way through the abandoned station and up the stairs to the surface.

It was still dark as they walked slowly down the streets to their final destination. Janet led the way, with Sam struggling behind, blood still seeping through the dressings, and Daniel bringing up the rear.

The three companions sat on damp, dewy grass as they looked across the water, watching pillars of smoke rise into the lightening sky.

"I just wish I knew what had happened to Kinsey," Sam hissed. "If I ever get my hands on him…"

"I doubt you'll ever get that chance," a deep male voice from behind told her.

Sam turned and saw three large, bulky male figures walking up to them. She smiled, tears of relief prickling behind her eyes. They had all seen so much these past few days, come so far. She watched as they sat down, the air sombre, and they returned to their vigil.

"Rumour has it, he shot himself," Jack continued. "Robbed us of our chance."

The shosa nodded as she watched the horizon. "And what happens now? No government on either side, no real political opposition that can step into power. The HD programme is as good as public; flying spaceships can hardly be explained away." Sam drew a long, deep breath. "What happens now?"

No-one had an answer to Sam's question, the same questions were echoing in their own minds. Exhausted, wounded and drained, the six warriors watched as the sun dawned on a new day and a new era.

**The End **

**Bibliography**  
**Japanese Military Rank and Insignia** **Japanese Imperial Army**, **Japanese Torture (Based on the Sook Ching Massacre)**, **General Japanese Lexicon,** **Japanese Honorifics**,**Japanese Greetings****, Nazi Party Rank and Insignia**, **Death Camps (Based on Auschwitz)****, Josef Mengele** and **Subway Trains** were all topics researched for the fic and relevant weblinks are on my LJ. The site www.auschwitz.dk/Auschwitz.htm was invaluable for death camp research.

The full biography can be found under memories on my LiveJournal profile. My username is tjh102


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